Oroonoko

When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko’s noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn’s visit to Surinam, Oroonokoreflects the author’s romantic views of native peoples as being in the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin.” The novel also reveals Behn’s ambiguous attitude toward slavery: while she favored it as a means to strengthen England’s power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.

Aphra Behn (c. 1640-û1689), born in Kent, England, claimed to have visited the British colony of Surinam, where Oroonoko is set. She wrote poetry, short stories, stage plays, and political propaganda for the Tory party, as well as her great amorous and political novel, Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister.

Janet Todd is Francis Hutcheson Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow and an honorary fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge.